Oculus CV1 Support?

Hi! I’ve been flat out busy; everything seems to happen at once. On the Oculus Rift front I haven’t received my CV1 yet and I’m waiting for updated news on Linden Lab’s Rift project viewer. Linden Lab are working on it but I’ve not heard any inklings of when an update with CV1 support might be released.

Long term, Linden Lab’s Rift code is the correct code to include in third party viewers; mine was just a rough stop-gap measure to satisfy immediate desires to experience Second Life and OpenSim in virtual reality. And stereoscopic 3D support should be able to be added into a viewer, taking advantage of the Lab’s Rift code stereo capabilities.

In theory, even though it’s significantly out of date compared with other viewers, the current CtrlAltStudio Viewer code could be updated to SDK 1.3 to support the CV1. I’d love to do this but really have very limited time, and there are significant changes from SDK 0.6–0.8 to 1.3. So right now I’m waiting for more news on the Lab’s Rift project viewer and my CV1.

UPDATE, 11 Apr 2016: From Friday 8 April’s Third Party Viewer meeting courtesy of Inara Pey: Linden Lab are actively working on their Rift project viewer. Some things are still not working but they hope to have an update soon. They are committed to getting it working, with the latest SDK and CV1 support. See the meeting video starting at 6:57.

If you get chance David, can you try out the X-Box controller with the latest versions?

I plugged in the X-Box One wireless controller that came with the CV1 and as soon as I logged in with that enabled my avatar zoomed off vertically into the sky. Without touching any button or trigger. And using the down rigger only slowed it down but it continued to go higher and higher I tried reducing the sensitivity and increasing the deadzone, but that does not seem to affect things.

I plugged in instead a wired X-box 360 for windows controller I had used successfully with CtrlAltStudio previously and that did lift the avatar a little on login, but only a bit and that could be cancelled with the down trigger and then that worked.

The X-Box wireless controller seems to have an issue that causes the Z Axis and Z Rotation to be at a 0 value at all times until the button is pushed rather than 50%. This causes the in game Y axis to be always activated. It’s possible to hold the trigger halfway in but that’s difficult to maintain. Is there any way to compensate for this difference on the wireless controller? I see a lot of people have similar issues with other games but I wasn’t able to find any workarounds.

Tested my Xbox 360 (wireless) controller and Xbox One (connected via cable) and I see the same behaviour: Xbox 360 works fine; Xbox One moves you vertically up. It looks like the Xbox One has different mappings of its physical controls to driver outputs: In Windows’ Control Panel > Devices and Printers > Xbox Controller > Game Controller Settings > Properties the 360 has a single “Z Axis” which the left and right triggers both control, whereas the One has separate “Z Axis” and “Z Rotation” for the two triggers.
It may be possible to adjust the settings in the viewer’s Preferences > Move & View > Movement > Joystick Configuration, though may need to end up with a different usage of the controls.

Hi. I downloaded and tested the latest Oculus runtime yesterday and it worked OK. However, if you’re just getting a black screen when you try toggling into Riftlook view it could be that the viewer’s GPU table needs updating to recognize your graphics card. … See below for some discussion on this.

i get a black screen at times when i try to enable and to fix i leave 3d mode. i go into preferences and enable advanced lighting model while in normal mode…. then switch back to disabling advanced lighting model then click 3d to enable rift and it loads up fine. very weird but i found this works.

Wow seriously nice work on the cv1 implementation.Its like night and day to the LL offering. Only had a brief play with it graphics look great but the ui is messed, but I have no doubt once ur cv 1 shows up you will fix it. I was pleasantly surprised how smooth it runs. Nice job :)

Hi Judas… did you spot David notes in the discussion in this blog post that might fix the UI depth issue for the CV1?

You can alter the range for the “UI Depth” slider in settings via this XML configuration file… C:\Program Files (x86)\CtrlAltStudio-Viewer-Alpha\skins\default\xui\en\panel_preferences_graphics1.xml. Near the end of the file there’s a control “RiftUIDepth”: adjust the “min_val” to say -120 (from the current value of 0). Then in the Viewer > Preferences > Display Output > Oculus Rift settings try a setting of something like -100 for the CV1 (it is set to +100 for the DK2).

I have an UI issue as well but I don’t think it is depth issue but separation issue. The UI looks fine if I close one eye but not with both eyes. Also if I close one eye I can only see the cursor through the left eye. Anyone know of a possible fix?

I should note that the environment looks awesome. I get great sense of depth and could spend hours just looking around. Thanks for getting this viewer working with the CV1!

Hi. The UI being OK only if you look through one eye is the “UI depth” problem.
The cursor being visible in only the left eye, however, is intentional behaviour: it’s a “hack” that lets the cursor hover over UI elements and in-world objects correctly without needing complex code to sort out what depth to place the cursor at.

I was thinking, Last night I gave LL viewer another go, disabling the atmospheric shader to allow the viewer to be somewhat useable. I do notice that the performance is very much spot on and in fact quite smooth.

I feel that David can build upon linden labs existing viewer and build a new ctrlaltviewer that will no doubt be greatest viewer ever.

While i do understand he is busy working on HF, I feel like this would be a side project worth investigating.

That could well be a way forward for someone (though not me; no room for further “side projects”, heh). Perhaps in conjunction with one of the up-to-date viewers like Firestorm or Alchemy? With a view to submitting the fixes back into the LL viewer, even?

From the descriptions of the rendering problems people have encountered with the LL Rift viewer, to me it seems like the image data not successfully making its way through all the stages and branches of the graphics pipeline. Plus the culling frustum not being quite right.

Hot off the hard drive and ready for some testing: 1.2.6.43402 Alpha. Pretty much the same as the previous version – including the same general limitations – but built with Oculus SKD 1.5.0 so that it runs with the latest Oculus runtime.

First a note to you David, This runs great on my CV1 the only issue is the UI parts are very much out of focus I get double vision if I open my minimap.

A few more things to note for the other people:

*Remember to enable Oculus rift mode in the graphics settings (should be the last tab with 3D settings)
*Increase clarity with Oculus Debug Tool (Pixel override 1.5 and above works great). Decreasing Pixel override below 1 does not seem to improve performance, And remember to close it after you use it to start up oculus home.
*Full screen is helpful as the mouse cursor does seem to be able to go off screen if you have mutiple monitors
*It’s idea to OC your graphic cards, This is still a hard app to run. ( I have a GTX 980 Ti with Most settings at Min in the viewer and I still get drops in fps/stutter in moderate areas).

I am away from my DK2 and CV1 setups so cannot weigh in with testing yet… but the “eye flipped” issue is something I haver seen on several other packages depending on how the images are fed to the Rift. On NoLimits2 roller coaster the splash and menu coaster selection screen (presented as a flat 2D large cinema screen in front of you in 3D space) worked fine in DK2, but had eyes flipped on CV1. Yet when they went into the proper surround 3D coaster view (presumably using a very different graphics type of feed) the image was fine in BOTH DK2 and CV1. They seemed to fix that easily once it was pointed out (they too did not have a CV1 at the time) but definitely this happens.

Did you still not get your CV1 David? I thought you were a kick starter backer?

Thank you David!
It works on my CV1 / Intel Core i/-33770K / Nvidia GTX 970, Oculus app 1.5.0.24…
Frame rates vary between 25 and 68+, depending on content and settings.
I still have the same micro jerking visuals while turning my head, but that was expected, as i had this with my DK2 and the older version too.
Seems the head tracking issue while looking straight up or down have vanished.
UI, e.g. preferences are not converging, even with UI distance = 0

For the UI, if you feel so inclined, you can edit the following file to increase the min/max values of the “UI Depth” slider in the Viewer > Preferences > Display Output > Oculus Rift settings: C:\Program Files (x86)\CtrlAltStudio-Viewer-Alpha\skins\default\xui\en\panel_preferences_graphics1.xml. Near the end of the file there’s a control “RiftUIDepth”: adjust the “min_val” and “max_val” values. Let me know if you find a good default UI Depth value and range of values for the CV1.

Yes, I have a CV1 but it is still in its shipping box. : ) Maybe next weekend.

When you first open the file you will see that originally “max_val” is set to 120 and “min_val” is set to 0

Change min_val to: -120

The CV1 starts to focus at -80 and below, From their you can adjust it to your taste.

Remember, after you change the vaules in the .xml file you have to restart ctrlaltviewer then go to Viewer > Preferences > Display Output > Oculus Rift and then adjust the UI Depth slider you will notice that it won’t stop at 0 it will continue onwards to -120

Please, could someone send me their program log file (or at least the portion of it with all the Rift-related numbers from “Oculus Rift: Operation mode = 0” through “Oculus Rift: Lens offset = -9”) from using it with a CV1? … File location: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\CtrlAltStudio Viewer\logs\CASviewer.log

I’ll have a look at updating the viewer this weekend with a fixed-up UI depth slider.

Wow you was just looking into it! and then you release a update haha so far i have messed around in it for a hour or so with cv1. much much more usable then the default viewer! like others have said lil judder while looking around but had that in all other viewers as well using rift.

alt camming around is a lil tough the cursor isn’t really where its at on the screen but that is such a minor detail. thanks for this man!

Thank. It works using my DK2 and is a real blessing for my OpenSim. FOV is not as wide but I guess that is due to the CV1 focus of the SDK. The cross hairs are easier to see too. An issue with the all the viewers, at least in SL, not some much my OpenSim, is that buildings etc. sometimes do not get rendered. Not that there are many buildings around me.

Tried using the LibreVR/Revive to Compatibility Layer to get this working on the HTC Vive. But unfortunately I’m only getting the chat showing up on the headset, no other graphics. Dont suppose anyone else have tried it out?

I was very excited to see an update but not so excited when I got things set up and can only get a pure black screen when I enable 3D… both on the headset and the desktop. I am using the CV1 with the firmware update that just came out today: 1.6.0.250794 (1.6.0250620)

I did this:
“To use: Turn on your Rift then start the viewer, and after logging in do the usual Ctrl-Alt-3 to toggle into Riftlook.”

Alternatively I tried to enable 3D from the toolbar button “3D” to the same result. Am I missing a step?

Has it anything to do with the fact that I am using a GTX 1080 and the viewer does not “officially” recognize it? Several of the graphics settings are greyed-out including Basic Shaders, Atmospheric Shaders, Advanced Lighting Model and Ambient Occlusion along with their corresponding child settings.

Hi. I just installed the latest Oculus runtime today and checked that it works (it does). The problem you’re encountering is probably the GPU table needing updating – thanks for the reminder about this. I’ll update it as part of this coming weekend’s “proper” release. (Or if you’re feeling brave you can try editing it yourself: C:\Program Files\CtrlAltStudio-Viewer-Alpha\gpu_table.txt.)

Thank you so much for everything! I had a feeling when I saw the GTX 1080 message that it could be an issue – it’s just so new! – but I did not even think to manually update the table as has been recommended for other things. I will be away all weekend so unfortunately I will not be able to test a manual table update and share results. Once I return and try the “proper” release I’ll report back as to whether or not I had success with it.

I have the same behavior, although wrote it off as Revive/LibreVR just not working. But I have the new Radeon RX 480 graphics card. Imagine it aint in the GPU table either. Will give it another test once its in. Would be great if I could get this working on the HTC Vive :)
Thanks for the hard work David!

Yeah I was able to add the RX 480 to the GPU Table as well. Was working quite alright except for the GUI problem mentioned in different post here. I’m guessing I can get that fixed as well with tweeking settings.

Such an unreal experience walking around in your SL home with the roomscale VR. Or stepping around your online friends avatars in VR. Very cool!

I tried adding the GTX 1080 to the GPU table but could not get it working that way. I am sure it has everything to do with not knowing the precise place to insert it and what format to use in the entry. I scoured the Web for any helpful forums or blog posts and found several that mentioned it but exactly none that were helpful in explaining the format. The formatting notes at the head of the table file is also out-of-format so it did not help either. I tried every combination and iteration that I could think of down to making a direct copy of a similar preceding entry and simply adjusting the digits (for every possible naming convention that was already listed) – but no good. I imported the table from my latest Firestorm release but FS doesn’t use the table any longer so even the latest one is out of date. The same applies to the latest LL viewer. I also could not find any mention of forcing the viewer to re-establish the graphics card as if it was running for the first time and could only find the advice that it checks the table at each login as its own sort of live update. I can’t tell if that is happening or not because even when I deleted the gpu table from the host directory it still loaded up without any mention of the missing file. The same thing happened when I uninstalled the viewer, deleted the local storage folder and did a clean install. Even with a clean install it did not give me the no-card-recognition message that I got when I first ran it and all my settings were just as I had left them so I had to have missed a folder somewhere outside of the program files and documents/local locations. That’s just me rambling a lot – the point of what I was putting this post up for was something that everyone probably already knows – but if the card is not recognized on the gpu table it will default to all minimum settings with all of the lighting features unavailable (greyed-out and cannot be toggled). It will not make any OpenGL features available to select except the VBO toggle which for some reason will still work. However, if you disbale the options below it which are checked by default they will uncheck and then go grey causing them to be unavailable to select until the viewer is uninstalled and reinstalled (that part did reset for me). Just some behavior of note – no idea if it helps or not – but throwing it out there in case it does. :) At this point I’m just going to have to wait until the release with the updated table because I can’t speak the language of the one I’m trying to edit. :D

Yes, I’ve seen the LL Rift news. All very disappointing and a quite bizarre situation. I’m having a look this weekend at whether it might be possible to update the CtrlAltStudio Viewer “as is” to use the latest Oculus Rift runtime.

Very sad news and i wonder if they gave up after seeing all the backlash from everyone? either way thank you for looking into it to see if maybe can do it, i know you are busy with High Fidelity now so it does mean a lot man.

Best wishes for this and thanks for taking the time to attempt it David. A few notes on what the key issues are would be very helpful. The constant changes that Oculus made to eye flipping and rotation between DK1, DK2 and CV1 as they experimented did make the approaches that used more direct graphics handling awkward.

A big advantage to the community if you can make CtrlAltStudio work at all will be that OpenSim VR can work again too. I was not very hopeful that there would have beeen a fimely route from the LL projct viewer to incorporatition into standard viewer code, and then into an eventual adoption in Firestorm.

Yes!!! Excellent. Cheers David!
Even if you aren’t able to update the viewer “as is”,
I’d just like to say a big thankyou for all your work and effort in really showing the full potential what VR can and will become, and providing me with hours of mindblowing experiences.
Here’s to many more in (what’s left of SL), and the future which I’m sure high fidelity will own.

Tried the “4.1.0.317313 OculusRift” viewer by Linden Lab…. I really can not say how disappointed i am. How can any professional programmer work on such a thing for so long (and even fix a huge amount of bugs) when the final product deliveres such a bad experience? I think they must have tried it somehow / somewhere. I completely see the difficulty of achieving good frame rates in a system like Sl, where they are using openGL and have very little influence on the content (that being far from optimized for good VR performance). But they should at least have tried to put in some useful UI. I cant understand why this one isnt some more advanced version of the old Rift viewer they had.
I really hope David can find the time to at least recompile his viewer with a CV1 compatible SDK, so we can use this to show some opensim content in “real VR”

Help us David! You’re our only hope!
Seriously, the last build of your viewer was absolutely amazing.
It was, for me, the first nascent glimpse of an (albeit, rough around the edges) version of a primitive metaverse.
I’ve been loving high fidelity and am very intrigued by whatever Sansar turns out to be.
(Plus, no doubt, a plethora of other virtual worlds being or about to be built.)
However, with the last build of the ctrl alt viewer it was an amazing experience just to Sim hop flying around people’s creations.
Please please pretty please update your viewer for CV1 so I can have some vaguely relevant virtual experience until high fidelity sweeps the board and dominates:)
(This LL viewer should never have been released. Unless they’re trying to kill SL for hmd users in preparation for sansar.)

Just tried LL’s Rift viewer and, well, it’s surprisingly un-good. It’s like the graphics are being fed from the wrong framebuffer object or the pipeline is being misconfigured when you switch into HMD view. Intentional or bugs? I suppose time will tell. The graphics should be able to be so much better (even if understandably the FPS isn’t so good)!

Note Jo Yardley’s comment about being able to use Vorpx with a regular viewer (i,e., like Firestorm, Alchemy, or LL’s regular viewer) to view Second Life in your Rift. I haven’t tried it myself but am told it can be used.

It would be nice if LL publicly acknowledge that this viewer is problematic and they be working on it further. Until then I wouldn’t bet on them releasing a version comparable to the one we saw back in 2014.

I feared that LL lost the talent that was responsible for the 2014 build.

I posted this on Inara prey blog but I want to know your thoughts, to check if you’re having the same issues.

I tried the Linden labs Oculus Rift SL viewer on my CV1. Am very disappointed, This feels like a major step backwards from what i seen when it released support for the DK2. I don’t know if it’s just my computer, But every time I go to HMD mode it forces all the lowest settings. The UI during HMD mode is unusable as it’s glued on to the HMD while also being out of focus.

Please let me know how this new viewer is working for you, because to me it’s messy and not very usable.

I also posted a snapshot. This shows how HMD mode forces the lowest settings, I have no idea how to override this.

wow i been waiting for this and following this page for updates, i just tried this viewer out with my CV1…..this is awful! the old viewer with my DK1 was a billion times better! all the graphic settings have no effect on what you see in the headset it just defaults to the lowest possible. :(

Except it appears to be terrible. When in HMD mode it looks awful, almost as if no shaders are being applied. The UI doesnt render correctly either. I am super dissapointed with it so far. Is anyone having better luck?

I abit upset. who in LL thought this was ready? How in the world have they been “working on it” and released this mess, do they even care? feels like they picked their lowest skilled employee and gave him a side project to just “make it work”

David been waiting on Linden lab’s viewer but what they released is a joke. David can do so much better in a week time compared to what these folks did that took months to release.

Oculus worked for my developer kit, so i spent 2500 (required by OR to run the commercial unit adn $600 for the Oculus) because I assumed that the download OFFERED BY SECONDLIFE was an operable viewer.

Hi Tom, did you mean that you have got the Oculus CV1/Runtime 1.3 or 1.4 working with the old Linden Labs Second Life Project OculusRift Viewer version by swapping in the gpu_table.txt from 3.7.18.295296https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-8771 ?

Did you get your CV1 David? I have been trying the various virtual meeting place apps like AltSpace and vTime and for me they are not a patch on a simple SecondLife or OpenSim setup. It would be good to get this working again with the updated runtime for DK2 and CV1. LL solution will take an AGE to move from a special Project Viewer for SAL only into Firestorm I think.

Yes, I received my CV1 just a week or two ago. Haven’t unboxed it yet. It will be interesting to see how quickly SL’s Rift support moves from project viewer into third party viewers, but alas this won’t be done in CtrlAltStudio Viewer.

No, I don’t know. My guess is that the impending(?) update to their Rift project viewer won’t; however, when I first looked at its code some time ago, it appeared to be structured to facilitate adding code for other HMDs.

I think the main problem for LL’s implementation of HMD support is that while Oculus Rift was the first available for testing it is facing stiff competition which it might not win out as the format of choice (remember VHS vs. BetaMax?) and LL may be waiting for it all to shake out before committing too much to further Rift development.

It appears that while Linden Lab have pecked at their Rift viewer a little, it is obviously there lowest priority test viewer, and they always seem to have another test viewer pop up for working on before doing anything with the Rift viewer. It would be nice to have an updated Rift viewer that takes in the latest LL release code.

Yes. Thanks for keeping all updated. I am trying to catch up now that I have another round of VR research to carry out. This time I am looking to avoid some of the classic side effects primarily through thowing raw computer power and moving to microsoft windows.

I noted that AI Austin said he missed being able to use the rift in Opensim? Does the exisiting viewer no longer work ( I only have the Mac version). I assume the Oculus minim spec of PC is needed but does the last current viewer need better?

The CtrlAltViewer has been a godsend to thanks for your work and help here. I was forded to take a break in my research (although a theoretical chapter on presence has been published) so apologies for going quiet. I am back on track now.

Hi Tom! You should still be able to get into OpenSim using an Oculus DK1 or DK2 with CtrlAltStudio Viewer (I haven’t heard of any OpenSim updates preventing this) but unfortunately not a CV1 which I believe is what Austin meant as he now has a CV1 I think. To get into OpenSim with a CV1: Linden Lab needs to release their updated CV1-capable Rift project viewer, then someone needs to integrate that code into an OpenSim-compatible third party viewer. I’d say it’s quite likely that this would be Windows-only because Oculus stopped Mac development at Oculus SDK 0.5 and it’s extra work to make a viewer support Mac as well (and even then it would support only DK1 / DK2).

Yes, I unfortunately don’t have the significant chunk of free time needed to update the codebase, the development environment, and to the latest Oculus SDK. Am hanging out for Linden Lab to finally release an update that supports CV1 in their Rift project viewer.

if the problem is the rift update you say will be done in a couple of weeks.why you write that won’t update the ctrl viewer? then the project is finished by then or do a new release? tell us if it is over

The Rift code in the CtrlAltStudio Viewer implemented just a bare minimum of Rift support up to the DK2, and is totally separate from Linden Lab’s Rift code which implements much more in depth support and (presumably) including CV1. If, for the sake of argument, I had the time (which I don’t) to rip out all my Rift code, update to the latest Firestorm codebase, and add in Linden Lab’s Rift code, there would be very little difference to the Firestorm viewer once it too updates to Linden Lab’s Rift code which I expect they will in due course.

The LL viewer will in any case initially not support OpenSim I guess until its incorporated into Firestorm.. which often waits for the full release code, rather than project viewer code. That could take quite some time as I think the VR/Rift viewer from LL will be a special branch project viewer for quite some time.

David, hopefully your Kickstarter Rift will arrive soon. I did the pre-order soon after the opening time, and mine is being delivered by UPS today :-) But the DK2 is also working fine with Oculus 1.3 and Oculus Home. Its just that I had to rebuild all our VR experiences with the Oculus 1.3 libraries in Unity3D to have them work. None of the pre-1.3 compiled apps work as far as I can see.

From the TPVD meeting on Friday, April 8th: Oz indicated that the Lab remain committed to supporting CV1, and are endeavouring to get the Oculus Rift project viewer updated. They have apparently encountered issues with recent SDK updates (Oz seemed to imply it was the number of SDK updates rather than anything specific on the technical front).

There is still no formal ETA on the next update, just the commitment that they want to support CV1, and get an update out as soon as they can.

Can you run your current viewer without an Oculus Rift? I’m primarily interested in using this viewer with Google cardboard, thus a side-by-side implementation would be wonderful (this is for a classroom setting).

No, sorry, the viewer only supports the Oculus Rift for VR and VR display output doesn’t work unless a Rift is plugged in.

There is also a “stereoscopic 3D” display output option but that almost certainly won’t work either. It creates twin full-sized images in separate OpenGL buffers and it’s up to the display driver and connected hardware to display them (e.g., on a 3DTV or using NVIDIA 3D Vision). In theory, a display driver could display the images as side-by-side images suitable for Google Cardboard but I’ve not heard of anyone being able to do this and very much doubt that it is possible.

If you could output side by side, I can have the students stream the resulting video to cardboard, have been able to do this Euro Truck Simulator and some other games/software. On Android there are many ways to stream the side by side to the phones, on iPhone we’ve been using something called Gagagu VR streamer. The only requirement is that the application just display a proper side by side image on screen (windowed). If this possible, this would work very well with Second Life, we have no interest in streaming traditional games this way. With Euro Truck we are able to control the view as well, using opentrack and iPhone.

Sadly the stereoscopic 3D option does not work in this case (as it requires additional hardware). But if those two full sized images could be laid out side by side, it would be wonderful.

3D Display DOES still Works using Nvidia 3D vision with CtrlAltViewer. It is of note that CV1 works fine with the current build of High Fidelity while Nvidia 3D vision does not. I check daily to see if LL’s Oculus Rift Project has been updated but as of today, it is the same old build.

Thanks for the update David and for all you have done to keep us going while the Linden labs viewer updates are being done. I do see signs of some activity on one of their development branches on the HMD viewer code.